Seated safely and comfortably in her pod, with the nanomachine-infused MountainDew flowing through her veins and beginning to saturate her body, preserving it against aging and linking with her braincells to begin the maximally fun VR-simulation that could - in principle - last her until the sun burned out

(Well, not that I'm gonna stay long - I wanna try this out for a bit, that's all. I can just stop once I get bored, right? Like the little robot said - I just got to

*wish to leave the simulation and mean it

• and I'll wake back up right away!)*

, Cassie felt herself beginning to get drowsy, her consciousness starting to drift out of focus.*

Then, the scene before her eyes shifted, fading from the pod's cold, somewhat rusty metal interior to pure white. Cassie felt a sense of vertigo as the world transformed, taking on a new shape...